Nelson Mandela worked at forced labor in a gravel quarry. Black Consciousness leader Steve Biko died after being tortured by police. Hundreds of other foot soldiers in South Africa's battle for majority rule were shot, beaten, starved, deprived of sleep or shocked with electricity.

Now, however, Afrikaner extremists, facing trial on terrorism and murder charges in a spate of attacks intended to help return South Africa to white rule, say they are suffering their own form of torture in prison: piped-in black music.

For 15 hours a day, the white men complain, Pretoria's C-Max prison broadcasts radio station Metro FM over the public-address system. The station's forte is music, particularly a loud mix of hip-hop, rap, rhythm and blues and South African hip-hop with African rhythms known as kwaito.

Lawyers for 13 members of the Boeremag, as the accused white terrorist organization is known, say the broadcasts amount to "psychological torture."

"We have men sitting here in tears and who are busy cracking," Rudi Lubbe, one of the men's attorneys, told Pretoria's High Court during a recent hearing. At least one of the accused is reportedly considering suicide and others are said to be at the end of their ropes.

While parents of teenagers everywhere may feel twinges of sympathy, pity for the suffering men of Pretoria C-Max has been limited in South Africa.

The jailed "Afrikaner Force" members also face charges of high treason and possession of illegal weapons in connection with the bombing attacks that left at least one dead in Soweto last year. The men additionally are accused of plotting to kill Mandela, the country's beloved former president.

Their goal, analysts say, was to destabilize South Africa's nearly decade-old black-led government and pave the way for a return to white rule.

Callers to talk radio programs in South Africa have suggested the men might want to invest in earplugs, or perhaps reconsider their line of work. Others have wondered just what the accused might prefer to hear instead over the prison public-address system. Perhaps the collected speeches of Mandela? The country's non-racial constitution read aloud?

The jailed men insist the music, played at "horrendous noise levels" from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., is infringing on their human rights and hindering their efforts to prepare for trial. Defense lawyers say Tom Vorster, one of the accused, is refusing to face trial until the "physical and mental torture" is stopped.

The judge in the case admits he feels a certain sympathy for the accused but says he will not consider pulling the plug on the prison entertainment system at least until he has heard from the lockup chief.

The good news for South Africans is that the Boeremag's suffering may finally help bring the country's first treason trial since the end of apartheid to the bench. The trial, originally scheduled for May, has been postponed repeatedly by fights over procedural details and maneuvering by defense lawyers.

Now, to win a little peace, the accused may have to face judgment--or perhaps even learn to live in the new South Africa where majority preference rules, even in blaring prison music.